The T-Shirt Says It All

Extra: My previous post on Shivraj Patil.

Haven't We Always Been This Way?

Let's look at the bigger picture: humans have always been like the gun-toting boy here. If anything, I take comfort from the fact that man is, perhaps, a more tolerant creature than he was a hundred years ago.

You and I, we can get by in life. We want to trade, earn our bread, live in peace, and hope not to step on someone's toes. But there's always somebody out there who wants more. Pushed down hard enough, he will fight back: for elbow-space, money, land, oil, ideology, faith, love, or anything that's worth fighting — and killing — for.

This is what we've been. That's the truth. We've always fought and killed. History is constituted almost entirely of man's territorial ambitions. There's no end to this. The more we kill, the more we annex, the greater we are. Ashoka The Great, Alexander The Great, and so on.

As long as he exists, man will fight man. Bloodshed and war know no end. Let the loss of human life not surprise you anymore. There will be lazy politicians, there will be police lapses, Intelligence will continue to sit on its butt, and maybe someday you will be sitting on a park bench or at a film theatre when you suddenly become toast. This is small matter.

There's no end to this, and the only way to escape it all is death. I'm saddened by the incidents in Mumbai and I am in one of my skeptical moods. But I'd be happy to be proven wrong.

~~~

Devarshi pointed me to a Facebook search result for Mujahideen. My first thought was to have the groups reported. My second thought was, "Wait, everyone deserves a chance to speak." Then, I noticed some hateful comments in one group and decided to have them reported. My submission is just a drop in the ocean. Perhaps you can help, too.

Bored of Facebook friends becoming fans of this and that?

I certainly was.

So I decided to become a fan of fans.

Hope you join me there, too.

Conversation with a journalist friend

M: Who is the person?

Me: You're not gonna hazard a guess?

M: No, tell me.

Me: Hint: she's in the news.

M: Sorry, who?

Me: Hint... the Western-most tip of the USA

M: I DON’T KNOW! TELL ME!

Me: Another hint: November 4.

M: I seriously don’t know. Just tell me who? Out with it.

Me: Not reading the news, are we?

M: Sarah Palin. Is she?

Me: Correct!

M: Wow!

Me: As your prize, you get a free newspaper subscription. Any paper but the Times.

M: Gosh, she is looking so pretty.

Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver

Travis: I should get one of those signs that says "One of these days I'm gonna get organezized".

Betsy: You mean organized?

Travis: Organezized. Organezized. It's a joke. O-R-G-A-N-E-Z-I-Z-E-D...

Betsy: Oh, you mean organezized. Like those little signs they have in offices that says, "Thimk"?